“Men are influenced by big loud empty words, styes which swell the eyelids and impede vision of the truth.”

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p.. 153

Fab. LXV: Of the Sun and Wind, Moral
The Fables of Aesop (2nd ed. 1668)

Source: Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings

Part 3, Chapter 19 (p. 226)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

1955) as quoted in Albert Einstein: Historical and Cultural Perspectives (1997) ed. Gerald Holton, Yehuda Elkana, p. 388, from The Centennial Symposium in Jerusalem (1979
1950s

Novum Organum (1620), Book I
Context: There are also Idols formed by the intercourse and association of men with each other, which I call Idols of the Market Place, on account of the commerce and consort of men there. For it is by discourse that men associate, and words are imposed according to the apprehension of the vulgar. And therefore the ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding. Nor do the definitions or explanations wherewith in some things learned men are wont to guard and defend themselves, by any means set the matter right. But words plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies.

Aphorism 43

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 63

Bang on the Door (2001)

Source: The Odyssey